Adoptive Parents Ordered to Surrender 3-Year-Old to Biological Father

I think you should be a little less judgemantal about someone else's life style choices. You must be a saint! If someone has down you wrong don't project that on someone else.

Although my heart goes out the the adoptive parents, I side with the father. The Vaughs were aware that he was the biological father but went through with the adoption anyway. Why would you do that. As parents who already have children and understand the bond that is created, this was something that they perpetuated and should have thought of the child and not themselves in wanting another child so bad. Now they will know how the real father feels in being denied his own son. The should have turned that child over when they knew. How would they feel if someone had adopted out there son without there permission. This father was screwed all the way around and it was all done at the child's expense. I know they think they were doing the right thing, but he was someone elses son that wanted him to begin with. Don't villafy the father. The person who is really to blame in all of this is the mother. SHE messed around on her husband with this man. SHE broke up with him. But the father found out the truth, he did the right thing. The Vaughs should have given back this child when they got the paternity test back. GRAYSON BELONGS TO HIM.

At this point of the boy's life, they should leave him with the adoptive parents. He's known them all his life, how's he going to feel suddenly taken away from them and handed over to some stranger? I think the biological father should stop being so damned selfish and leave the boy be.

I agree with you Rhonda.

What about all of the men out there that are paying child support for children that are not biologically theirs just because they were married to the woman when she got pregnant with some other man's baby? Time and again I have seen men fighting against supporting a child when DNA PROVED it was not his, and the courts said it was "tough" because he was legally the father of the child when she gave birth. So...if the man she was married to legally surrendered his rights as a father that is all the court should be considering for the custody of the boy. The biological father should have no power or say in the matter. He was, after all, just the "sperm donor". If the court is going to say that a "sperm donor" has "paternal rights", then some "sperm donor" should be supporting "Octomom's" kids instead of the state.

Please, what a ridicious statement. I am sure if that mother decided to have the child and raise it, she would of found that man and had him pay for the next 18 yrs! Women can't have it both ways. She should of found a way to contact him and tell him he had a child. She dismissed him and gave the child up for adoption. The adopted parents should of turned that child over immediately when they found out the father wanted him. However, hard it would of been that was the right thing to do. Now, after all this time and fighting the child will be removed from the only family he knows to live with someone he doesn't know. Shame on the adopted parents! That being said, the father should now do the right thing and transition the child slowly. He should put away the anger and hate for these parents and do what is right for the boy. Otherwise, the child will suffer!

This family should not have to give up this child. He showed no interest in the child when the woman was pregnant and has not tried to contact him since. He should have been trying to have a relationship with him whether or not he had legal custody at the time. He might have met the adoptive family and realized that the boy is better off with them. He chose the mother of his child when he had a relationship with her and they could have discussed this. If not, then the child should not suffer for it now. It will be very traumatic for him, his adoptive parents and his siblings.

Response to KATE-He didn't establish paternal rights until 17 MONTHS after the boy was born. He merely filed after the birth to preserve his rights as a prospective parent. Paternity was not known at the time. The biological father was also not required to give his contact info to the adoption agency. He conveniently stepped aside and let somebody else raise the boy through the difficult years and then determined he wanted custody AFTER the all night feedings, diaper changings, bed wetting, crying, puking, day care costs, etc. He is a low life. The Vaughn's two children should have the right to file a law suit against him for alienation and deprivation of their right to grow up with their sibling. The Vaughns should file a law suit against him to repay all of their expenses INCLUDING their time they spent raising the boy AND deprivation of his future love, affection, and void of having the boy in their lives, pain, suffering, and the whole nine yards. I hope they take him to the cleaners so he is penniless and can't afford to fight anymore nonsense court cases against them, and I hope the Vaughns win.

You don't know that, I don't know that, only God knows that. We cannot judge someone unless we are God. We can discipline them if they have done wrong but we cannot assume something unless we are a part of that person (he or God). We really need to pray that God will take care of both parties involved in this child's life.

Everyone in this is "an injured party." As an adult, I believe I would step back if the adoptive parents were good people, for the love and sake of my bio child. As a now grown adopted child I can tell you that I would have never gotten over the trauma of being ripped from my adoptive parents. Keep in mind there are extended family that this 3yr old will lose. If bio dad really loves this boy he will make some sort of visitation arrangements and take a back seat.

I feel for the Vaughns, but had they relinquished the child 3 years ago, they wouldn''t have had this emotional nightmare. Sure, there was probably some sort of bond early on, but nothing as strong as it is now -- for either the Vaughns or the child. However, the biological dad could take the high road, in the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD, and opt for shared custody or liberal visitation at the very least. This way he could be present in his son's life without exposing him to an unnecesary emotional trauma.

this is sad story, especially for the child, and for the father and husband, but I say put it pass know deceptive woman, anything to cover their tracks, thats what my sister did, she has 5 kids now, at the time her kids father and her was living together she had 3 girls and when they lost their house, she was pregnant with a boy, she tried to pass the boy off as her 3 daughters father and then he finally found out the truth, but thats not the end to the story, she took him for childsupport they did a parternity test and found out that the second child wasn't her at this time she was 5, and my sister hasn't told the father yet.
In this world it takes all kinds, deceit only hurts the innonce people, that man had a right to his son, the adoptive parents were wrong, they knew a parturnity test was being taken place, adoption should have been stop until the test results, but people in todays world is selfish and don't think of others, did they think that the father would just go away.

Response to Inkling - What you are saying is absolutely NOT true! He did NOT step aside for 17 months. That's how LONG it took the courts to make a ruling. He filed at 17 DAYS. What sense does it make to come forward when to get your child when he is days old if you want to skip the hard stuff for 17 months? That's pure NONSENSE! Also, who says kids get less expensive or easier as they grow up? Funny, to everybody else it seems to be the other way around.

He didn't step aside for THREE years EITHER. That's how long it took for all the courts to rule in his favor.

Rhonda - you must have very low value for parenting if you can't distinguish between raising kids and marriage. Your kind of thinking is what makes people use their kids as pawns in their divorces to hurt the other parent.

If a father were to take his infant child from the mother, and raised the child with another woman for 3 years, should the child be returned to the mother, or left with the only family the child has ever known?

If the father picked up the child from the mother, than abandon the child at a Hospital ER, as he LEGALLY CAN, under the Safe Haven laws, just as a mother can, should she be allowed to get the child back?
Single_Fathers_N_Safe_Haven_Laws.Dads-House org

The adoptive parents are the ones at fault. They knew that the biological father had filed for putative rights shortly after the child's birth and had filed for custody prior to their filing for adoption. They already have 2 children so it's not like not getting that baby would have deprived them of parenthood. It's not like they had waited forever to get a child. What reasonable person would go through with what they know to be a controversial adoption? These adoptive parents were truly selfish. The father had to wait 17 months for the court to return legal DNA results. The adoptive parents could have contacted the father's attorney and had him do an outside paternity test right after he filed the putative claim and had results in 5 days before the child was a month old and abandoned the adoption. They dragged this out for 3 years and whatever separation issues the boy has lays with them. Fortunately, for the little boy, as you grow older you really don't remember much from age 3 and he will grow up with the love of his real father. The only things I remember prior to kindergarten are a vague cat, falling down steps at my grandma's house and ice cream and a vague toy I got in the hospital when I had my tonsils out. I couldn't tell you what my parents or grandma looked like prior to around age 6 or without being told that the reason I was in the hospital. When I ask my grown children about stuff from when they were little kids, they don't remember anything and I get an "If you say so, mom.". Children are very adaptable and any trauma will be short lived, How wonderful for this child to know that even though his birth was unplanned and his mother didn't want him, his father wanted and loved him so much; he fought tooth and nail to raise him. As for not contacting the parents or child while in litigation, he would have followed his attorney's advice. It should be noted that the adoptive parents did not reach out to him either.

I gave up a child at birth and the father never indicated he wanted any interaction with the child and refused to even consider seeing him. I feel if the father knew within days about the boy, he should have taken action to visit the child, send birthday cards, Christmas gifts ETC. I didn't read any of that in the news release. Until the father of children are there for the woman though her pregnency and supports the mother, he should have no other rights.

This response is moronic. So the father was supposed to "hang around" and wait to find out if the woman he slept with was pregnant? Did it ever occur to you that the mother probably lied to him? Your real issue is that it was "adulterous" not anything based in other than your beliefs. Your response is stupid.

The BioDad wants a trouble free child. He didn't want to change diapers, clean up baby vomit or deal with colic. He thinks that a toilet trained kid is no trouble. This guy needs a pound puppy, not a child.
And he obviously doesn't care about the child's psyche, if he isn't looking for joint custody. He needs to be smacked back to reality, and do what is best for the child, not his ego.

One cannot judge one's morals; we don't know the whole story! Single fathers have been denied parental rights far to long. Do we know if she told him that she was married? Did she tell him that she was in the middle of getting a divorce…

With what I read in this story that barley divulges the facts let alone the truths, is that this man stood up and said, I might be the father?? Umm, who in their right mind would be sick enough to withhold this information from a biological father? The only intention on the mother’s part was to hurt this man.

It appears to me that this man was “Man” enough to stand up and say wait a minute here, this may be my son. He did not run or hide from his God given and legal right to be a parent, instead he took the methodical approach of “choosing” not to disrupt or interfere with what had tragically transpired in a veil of secrecy on the mother’s part.

This Man took a path of being a Man and sought the legal course and has held this family in such regard as not to interfere or allow himself to give any reason of any kind to the courts to deny him custody of his son. Now for this upstanding family, did they invite him to their home to visit his son? Did they invite him to his son’s birthday parties, did they attempt to set up visitations so that he could feed and hold his son?

If they had you can bet we on the public side of this story would have heard about it so that they “the family” could be painted in a more considerate-passionate light.

My God, the pain and torment this man must have gone through.

All we know is what this family wants us to know --and that is “ please view us as victims!” in this matter. Lastly far be it for me to have never made a mistake in my life?

As for victims, this father who from the very day he suspected that this was his son never ran, never hid and has spent countless hours in legal counsel and has spent countless dollars defending his right to have custody of his rightful and biological son so that he could spend his life with his son doing what fathers and sons do TOGETHER.